Good Reads Book Giveaways

Guest Post by Joelle Anthony
Here you go. http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/5228-restoring-harmony
Giveaway on GoodReads.com
Last week, we talked about book giveaways in general. Today, we have a case study on book giveaways on Goodreads.com. Thanks to Joelle Anthony for this guest post.

On Your Site OR On GoodReads?
Book giveaways have become a great way for authors to draw people to their [...]

Larger Than Life in Chapter 1

Give Readers a Larger Than Life Protagonist
In my new novel, I’ve written about a dozen different openings, looking for a voice that works. I’m settling in on one, but the first chapter is still unsteady.
One thing I’m looking at today is how to make the main character, the protagonist, larger-than-life.

Book Giveaway Contests

20 Agents: 119 Picture Book Sales

Brenda Sturgis reports on the top literary agents for selling picture books in this recent post. Let’s talk about this report.
Top Literary Agents for Picture Books
Self Reported Statistics. The statistics for Sturgis’s report was compiled from reported sales on Publisher’s Marketplace. This is a big caution because

Random Acts

WHAT: Random Acts of Publicity 2010
WHEN: September 7-10

Last year, I declared the week after Labor Day, as Random Acts of Publicity Week. It’s coming back this year on September 7-10. Here’s a quick summary from last year and we’ll update it with lots of fun this year!
Random Acts of Publicity 2011
Are you like me? [...]

Distracted?

Between blogs, email, Facebook, etc. I find myself jumping around too much. I need a way to concentrate on my writing better.
So, this week, I’m trying Q10. It is a text editor that fills the screen with no tool bars, no access to other programs unless you save and exit, and a built-in timer.

Should Authors Promote Books?

Recently, I was asked a basic question: should authors promote their books? Yes. Here are your options.

Eavesdropping: Real Dialogue

Notes from the Field
If you’re revising a novel or picture book, one step is to look at the dialogue of your characters and sharpen it. Tom Chiarella, in his book,Writing Dialogue suggests recording dialogue — yes, you get to EavesDrop! — around you for a day. At least for a couple hours. [...]

Give Books New Life

Why you Should Promote Your Back-List Books
Author Alexis O’Neill has just released a video for one of her back-list titles. Most authors promote heavily newly released books, but don’t do much for titles a couple years old. I’ve asked Alexis to explain why she’s focusing on her back-list books and give us a few tips [...]

Success: What Price Does Your Character Pay?

I’m getting much closer to actually starting my new novel, but I’m still asking myself a crucial question.
What is the cost of success for the main character?
Loss of innocence. If you write a bildungsroman novel, that genre which take a main character from